Source: All Africa
A number of wives in Tanga region, have complained that their husbands hide their voter's identity cards to prevent them from voting in the forthcoming general election. This, indeed, is unthinkable as husbands are not expected to be this foolhardy.

The situation, we are told, is so bad that Tree of Hope, an organisation of paralegals, has deployed operatives who move from house to house advising women to hide their voter's cards from their husbands or other members of the family.

It is imperative to mention at the outset that stealing anyone's voter's card is illegal and is punishable by law. We all know that women make the greater portion of the population at about 56 per cent and hence hold greater voting power in terms of numbers. In this case, we expect to see more women than men at voting centres.

And this has often been the case in yesteryears. So, the husband who prevents his wife from voting, denying her democratic right, commits a felony. We shudder to imagine what else happens to these humble wives who are denied even their basic right to vote.

Husbands who commit such misdemeanors are also notorious in bashing their wives. Let these husbands know that wife bashing is a greater felony. Some wives have experienced severe domestic violence (being hit with a fist or something else, kicked, dragged, beaten up, choked, burnt on purpose, threatened with a weapon or had a weapon used against them. This is unacceptable and horrendous.

Unfortunately, some conservative elders, mainly in rural Tanzania, impute that husbands may batter their wives with impunity and that even male partners who are not husbands may beat their girlfriends without fear of legal retribution.

It has been determined that despite concerted efforts to curtail gender violence in families and other communal settings the canker remains a diehard mainly in Tanga, Shinyanga, Mara, Morogoro and Mbeya regions. So, wives here are lashed with canes apart from taking an angry dressing-down.

They are humiliated, sometimes in the presence of their children and dehumanized. In these regions, it has been reported, gender desks at police stations receive one or two complaints a day. The number of these unfortunate social misdemeanors often climbs to five in some stations in a single day.

Indeed, this canker appears to be escalating. The people should be aware that any act of gender-based violence that results in physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty is a punishable crime.

• Tanzania